I would say HDD's are a good backup option assuming you overwrite your data every few years at least (because of the volatility of magnetic storage). If you do even monthly backups and don't necessarily need you old ones forever HDDs will work great. The less they're used the longer they last and they're a proven technology. The only risk is that the data will discharge over long periods of disuse (and it's a long time). As long as you don't write the data and lock it away for 30 years you should be good.

Yeap. I recall how he told about Windows Restore points killing and slowing SSD drive in magic way LOL.

Click to expand...

I remember (on Anandtech Forum) he was strongly opposing the idea of over provisioning and couldn't grasp what it does at all.
Few of us couldn't even make him comprehend how SSD's work.
A while later I came across his web site and saw he is explaining about over provisioning.:hi2:
And no references at all.
The world is funny as it is, isn't it?

This comment is from Anandtech web site:

JellyRoll said:

Thats not 'counterfeit NAND'. It is merely NAND that OCZ desolders off RMA SSDs and sells into the market. A fairly common occurrence. Yet another reason why opening your SSD voids your warranty, they do not want you to know what you are getting!

No clue who the company is, but when I think of fake, I would think that if I am buying Micron NAND, and it is actually OCZ that has had all its marking stripped off and then a fake Mocron brand placed on it, it is counterfeit. However, I would not buy from an unknown company anyway.

It is NAND that is OCZ and then had everything stripped off and fake Micron branding replaced it. That is actually the definition of counterfeit. Very different than Micron buying the NAND and rebranding it. It would appear that a company bought the NAND from OCZ and then worked hard to counterfeit the Micron branding, no doubt to resell at a higher price.

I do agree with that " void the warranty if you open the SSD" can be protection from users knowing practices less than stellar or honest, because in reality, who knows if there are other companies buying counterfeit NAND. I have seen relatively new companies advertise or post on here for a while and sometimes their prices are much lower than name brand companies.

I don't know the person you refer to, but please don't allow your perception/knowledge of that person to take away the main message here. Buy from reputable companies, and as in my first post, there are issues buying counterfeit Crucial SSD drives also.

This is quoted from the original article. Disclaimer: I haven't taken the time to verify this.

"PommieB &#8226; 3 days ago &#8722;
Fake Crucial ssd's turned up on the Crucial forums about 4 to 6 months ago, the older M225 ssd's and at least one M4, I placed a caution in the news section of my thread at extreme overclocking, These ssd drives were not manufactured by Crucial and were discovered when the ssd's were rma'd, the M225 is a old Crucial drive that's been EOL for a while now, the rma's were naturally turned down by Crucial and a warning was placed in the Crucial forums."

I have 5 USB drives from 128 MB (yes MB) to 8 GB - various manf. and all are used often. None have failed but any that contain important data are backed up to an external hard drive.
BTW anyone have personal experience with Centon USB drives I saw 128 Gb for <$70 US
good find Abidderman

OCZ bought the whole waffers from Intel Micron and sliced it up into chips then screened them with their markings.

OCZ,upon testing the NAND memory chips found some did not meet their SSD NAND specs.

Having no use for the chips that didn't meet their SSD quality standard sold them off at auction.This is a common practice in the NAND market.

The NAND was eventually rescreened with Micron part numbers that reflect USB quality NAND.

Again not uncommon in the NAND market.

The NAND started life as Intel/Micron and ended up as Micron.

The SSD was made by KingFast and inspected and certified by them so can it be called counterfeit?

The NAND is Real Intel Micon so can it be called Fake?

How they ended up in a KingFast F3 SSD is the real question.

Deception or Accident

End users void their warranty if the open their SSD to check the components.

Let's take the NAND question a bit furher.

How much difference is there between a NAND chip that passes testing at the top of the specs and the bottom of the specs that would allow for it to be put in an SSD?

Most likely different makers will have different tolerances.

The NAND on mSATA SSDs is easy to see and read the markings.

Many have the Brand/Part#/Lot#/Production Date and the numbers can be Googled.

I saw some NAND on a particular brand and model of mSATA SSD that were not familiar to me and was not found on Google so I asked the rep that visits and posts on this forum frequently about the NAND chips but I didn't get an answer.

So,why does opening an SSD void the warranty if doing it doesn't damage the drive?